It used to be that oil futures could only be purchased by people who actually planned on using the oil that they bought. Deregulation allowed speculators to get in on the action. Now over half of what Americans pay at the pump goes straight into the pockets of Wall Street speculators that add nothing of value to the whole thing.
Neither party is talking about getting speculators out of the oil futures market.
Similarly, speculators are driving up the cost of homes.
1/5
I don't know how much those speculators raise prices, but if it is a non-zero number, they should not be allowed to speculate on places other people need to live.
Enter the NIMBY voter. These idiots cause a lot of the stupid you see in American politics.
If we propose getting those speculators out of the home market in order to bring home prices down, the NIMBY crowd will fight you, because their own homes will be worth less money if you do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY
2/5
If you propose building new apartment buildings in order to bring rent prices down, the NIMBY crowd will fight you tooth and nail on the premise that those apartment buildings will lower the value of their homes if you build them anywhere near their homes.
In fact, just about anything you do to bring housing prices or rent back down to something the average American can actually afford, chances are good the NIMBY crowd will fight you.
3/5
America has a growing number of homeless people with full-time jobs. There's a whole section of YouTube devoted to explaining to people how to live out of their cars.
I shouldn't have to point this out, but jobless homeless people don't generally have cars. Those videos are for homeless people with jobs.
But the second you propose doing something about the housing crisis, hordes of angry home-owners will fight you tooth and nail.
Do people not grasp the consequences of this?
4/5
If we don't fix this, and the economy collapses, the value of your home is going to collapse precipitously.
5/5
Homes are for living in!
The fact that America and similar societies (Canadeh, Straya, Blighty, Kiwiland) have such a problem with housing unaffordabilty is in part because of the idea that houses are wealth retainers and wealth generators. And let's not even talk about how bad things have gotten with the same thing in the Sinosphere.
Homes. Are. For. Living. In.
I'm not sure if that last question is rhetorical, but I have run into a few variants of answers from Boomers. And they're very telling.
A real percentage of them have not done the math and kind of casually ignore the issues. My married friends are two professionals with university degrees in Indiana. The parents could not understand why the kids didn't already own a house until they were walked through the actual budget required to do so. Boomers lived in blissful ignorance... /1
Another group has done the math and they've decided that stuff just needs to last until they expire. When faced with 20-year roofing to $X or 40-year roofing for $1.3x, they will take the 20-year roofing because they're going to die before the 40-year one "pays off". The next roof is "somebody else's problem".
I've met these people on my condo board, there are a lot of them.
There is a group of people who understand and want a better world for their kids. It's a small group. //
@tofugolem you know I was debating this with long time Tory voter. Arguing the case for massive home building program ring fence for local people. Broadly in agreement but with limits - not devaluing his own property or undermining his profits for letting property. The system only works so long as inequities are allowed to persist for his benefit…